Month September 2014

“Ours is the age of substitutes; instead of language, we have jargon; instead of principles, slogan; and, instead of genuine ideas, bright ideas.” – Eric Bentley, British writer. Too often as business owners there is the temptation to talk in a language that is only understood by you and the people who are part of…

Over the last couple of months I have been running a series of workshops on emotional intelligence and from them I am now running a further series of six workshops going deeper into different aspects of EI. One of the interesting learnings for me has been the realisation that EI is one of those things…

There’s a new breed of start-up – they’re younger, more optimistic and ready to innovate. This year’s DNA of an Entrepreneur Report – which explores the challenges of small business owners, along with what makes them tick – reveals that the recession has had a big impact on the way start-ups operate, leading to a…

“To run this business… you need… optimism, humanism, enthusiasm, intuition, curiosity, love, humour, magic and fun and that secret ingredient – euphoria.” – Anita Roddick Anita was talking about her very unique business The Body Shop, but in reality these are qualities that any entrepreneur will need to run their own business successfully. Optimism: Because…

“The most successful people are those who take pride in their work, pride in their family… It is great to attain wealth, but money is really just one way – and hardly the best way – to keep score.” – Kemmons Wilson (1913-2003) US entrepreneur and founder of Holiday Inn. It is tempting to see…

“A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.” – Mary Kay Ash, US entrepreneur An unfortunate truth of entrepreneurship that many people will not tell you is that often the best idea for a product or service is not the one that ultimately wins out and…

Many small businesses will handle their personnel administration processes, such as attendance tracking, contracts management, appraisals in a make-do and highly distributed system of Excel files, word files, document scans etc… This is not usually a conscious decision; it’s more likely that it has evolved that way through necessity as a result of the time…

Nowadays, we take email for granted but many people do not know the history of email and how it came to be such an effective and widely-used communication tool. Therefore, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to document a brief history of email, so that people who use it on a day-to-day basis can appreciate just…

“I believe that you have to understand the economics of a business before you have a strategy, and you have to understand your strategy before you have a structure. If you get these in the wrong order, you will probably fail.” – Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computers It is surprising how often a business…